Mention of the name of Logan placed me instantly on the alert. It was surely the man whom I had seen with her in the wood in the early hours of the morning following the tragedy—the same whom I had encountered with Mademoiselle in Chelsea—the same, I believe, who had lived in such suspicious seclusion at Hayes’s Farm.
“Tell him I am engaged at present,” exclaimed my love, facing the waiter without betraying the least anxiety. She was, of course, not aware that I knew the name of the man with whom I had seen her on that fateful morning. Therefore she affected a carelessness that utterly amazed me. Could it be that that bowl of flowers had been placed in the window as a signal to him, and that he had disregarded it and come to her?
The slightly pursed lips betrayed her annoyance at his presence, but beyond that she treated the man’s announcement with calm indifference.
Was this broad-shouldered man her accomplice—or perhaps her lover, that she should thus communicate with him in secret? How my mind struggled to be free; how my restless reason combated with my love. I tried, but could not contradict the glaring truth which impressed itself upon my soul; and yet, though I was urged to a conviction, I could not act upon the principles which subdued me.
I could learn stoicism and be the calm philosopher in every passion, save only love; but he was my divinity, and like a defenceless babe within the giant’s grasp, all struggles to evade him were but vain.
Fool that I was! poor doting fool, how had I quaffed the sweet illusions of hope only to feel the venom of despair more poignant to my soul.
“You have a caller,” I said in a hard blank voice. “Perhaps I had better leave you?”
“Oh,” she answered, “there really is no necessity for you to go. He may wait—he’s quite an unimportant person.”
“Named Logan—is he not?”
“Yes,” she replied rather faintly, with a strange smile.